Kevin Gregson appears in this Ottawa police videotape of his interrogaton a few hours after the stabbing death of Ottawa Const. Eric Czapnik. The video was shown at Gregson s first-degree murder trial.

Kevin Gregson appears in this Ottawa police videotape of his interrogaton a few hours after the stabbing death of Ottawa Const. Eric Czapnik. The video was shown at Gregson s first-degree murder trial.

Kevin Gregson appears in this Ottawa police videotape of his interrogaton a few hours after the stabbing death of Ottawa Const. Eric Czapnik. The video was shown at Gregson s first-degree murder trial.

Kevin Gregson appears in this Ottawa police videotape of his interrogaton a few hours after the stabbing death of Ottawa Const. Eric Czapnik. The video was shown at Gregson s first-degree murder trial.

The scene outside the Ottawa Hospital Civic campus the morning of Dec. 29, 2009. The lead investigator into the slaying of Const. Eric Czapnik described the scene as ‘surreal’ with police cruisers ‘abandoned’ outside and stunned officer awaiting news.PAT MCGRATH
/ THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

Kevin Gregson is taken by police from the Elgin Street courthouse in this photo taken Dec. 30, 2009, the day after Gregson is alleged to have killed Ottawa police Const. Eric Czapnik.JULIE OLIVER
/ JULIE OLIVER

OTTAWA — Kevin Gregson spoke at his first-degree murder trial for the first time Tuesday, from both the TV screen and the prisoner’s box.

For more than three hours, spectators in a packed courtroom watched Gregson locked in a verbal joust with Ottawa Det. Sgt. Timothy Hodgins during an interview recorded Dec. 29, 2009, just hours after Gregson fatally stabbed Const. Eric Czapnik.

In the prisoner’s box at the centre of the courtroom, it was Gregson’s body language that spoke volumes.

At times his head was bowed so low, his back was almost flat. Rarely did he look at the image of himself on the screen — the newly-arrested Kevin Gregson of more than two years ago dressed in a sleeveless, white police-issue ‘suicide suit’ talking flowingly about himself, but avoiding details about the stabbing itself.

It is toward the end of the three hours when Gregson suddenly asks: “What was his name?”

“Czapnik,” replies the detective. “Eric. He has a wife, just like you and me. He has kids.” Hodgins recites Czapnik’s badge number.

Gregson says nothing, but later asks: “How old was he?”

“Fifty-one.”

“Near retirement,” concludes Gregson.

“No, he just joined the force three years ago.”

“There are some things you can’t fix,” says Gregson. “You can’t go back in time.”

“No, we can’t breathe life back into this person,” agrees Hodgins.

Gregson, his neck bandaged for self-inflicted wounds, confides that the RCMP will be “pissed at me. It will be a scandal.”

Suspended by the Mounties over a series of disciplinary breaches, Gregson tells Hodgins that the force had stopped his pay weeks before and he couldn’t pay his bills.

“I’ve got $30,” he says.

Gregson, who is pleading not guilty to first-degree murder, tells Hodgins he carjacked a vehicle at the Tim Hortons on Greenbank Road and drove to the police station across the street in an effort to lure a police officer.

After three spins around the station parking lot, no police officers appeared. He assumed they were between shifts.

After spending time at his Greenbank area home cleaning what he said was the aftermath of a bloody suicide attempt, Gregson said he headed for the Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital, where he knew he would find a police officer.

The former Mountie said he wanted a gun to shoot himself and knew he could get one from a police officer.

“Why didn’t you get on the street, or steal one, or buy a rifle from Canadian Tire?” asks Hodgins. “Why involve an innocent person in your own death?”

“Throw yourself into the Rideau River. You’d go under the ice and never come up. Why not stand on the Queensway in front of a tractor-trailer?”

Gregson says he wanted to die at home. He wore two bulletproof vests, he says, so he wouldn’t be shot while stealing a police officer’s gun.

“I wanted to go home, stare at the wall and then do it,” says Gregson, adding that he once contemplated slashing his throat at the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill. “Police always have guns. I wanted to blow my brains out. I still do. I’ve been suicidal for five years.”

Gregson doesn’t respond when Hodgins says: “Slitting an officer’s throat is good enough for him, but not dignified enough for you.”

Gregsons tells the detective he never sought treatment for depression.

“I’m a cop,” he says. “It would be a sign of weakness. I suck it up.”

“It’s not about you,” says the detective. “You made choices for other people, Kevin. Let’s stop talking about you. You made choices that affected a bunch of children, including your own.

“Look at the camera and tell that widow and her children that you’re sorry.”

Gregson speaks often during the video about an operation he underwent for water on the brain — cysts that left him more aggressive.

“It cost me my marriage and my job,” he says. “The middle of my brain is Swiss cheese. I should be dead. I’m a freak. I was supposed to be dead four years ago. I can’t seem to friggin’ die.”

Gregson, born Native and adopted by an Ottawa couple, hints that his medical condition comprises at least part of his defence, and says the tumours developed because of rough work with the RCMP on reserves.

“I’ve been hit on the head too many times,” he says.

During the interview, Hodgins constantly tries to get Gregson to talk about stabbing Czapnik.

Gregson resists — on advice, he says, from his lawyer.

But he does say that he wasn’t feeling aggressive when he attacked Czapnik. The officer was just a man with a gun and he (Gregson) was focused on killing himself.

“If taking someone’s life isn’t aggressive, what is?” asks the detective. “ ... You knew he would struggle for his life to keep his gun.”

“Have you ever heard of Job, in the Bible?” Gregson asks Hodgins. “Job had everything and lost it. I’m having a Job experience. This is being inflicted upon me.”

Hodgins disagrees.

“There was no divine intervention,” he says. “Your religion didn’t lead you down this path, my friend. It was by your own hand.”

Gregson repeats that his Mormon religion dictates that he’s “screwed” all ways because he will be consigned to the lowest part of heaven.

Twice during the interview, Hodgins leaves Gregson alone and the accused killer begins talking to himself.

“What a mess, what a mess,” he repeats, rubbing his hands through his thinning hair. “When I get into trouble, I get into trouble.”

He drums his fingers on the table rhythmically and hums: “Sh--, sh--,” he says, remarking that his wife will be furious with him.

He settles down to sleep with his arms on the table, head on his arms.

Gregson eventually allows that Czapnik had him in a bear hug and they rolled on the ground, but will say little else about the incident.

With a question that seems to relate to his ability to overpower Czapnik, Gregson asks Hodgins: “How much can you bench press?”

Hodgins says he doesn’t know and Gregson volunteers that he pumps more than 300 pounds.

Before Hodgins ends the interview, he suggests to Gregson again that he look at the camera and say something to Czapnik’s family.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” he says.

Before the video was shown, Hodgins described a “surreal” scene in the Civic emergency room that frigid December morning, where a crowd of young officers gathered in shock after learning of Czapnik’s death.

“Surreal is the only way to describe it,” Hodgins testified.

“They were in shock and looking as if they were waiting for someone to tell them what to do next,” he said.

When he arrived at the Civic, Hodgins said he was unable to find a place to park because of the 30 or so police cruisers “abandoned” outside the hospital. Officers from across the city had rushed to the scene after hearing reports of Czapnik’s stabbing.

Hodgins, a veteran officer who likened the role of lead investigator to that of a quarterback, immediately went to work.

He began gathering evidence, including the bloodied uniforms of the four Ottawa paramedics who had fought to save Czapnik’s life and had wrestled the accused to the ground.

By this time, former police chief Vern White had arrived, as had Czapnik’s wife, Anna Korutowska. Hodgins was also fielding telephone calls from dozens of officers wanting information and expressing concern.

Court heard a brief audio segment recorded before the video in which Gregson said he was a Mountie and says for the first of several times that day he had just undergone surgery for water on his brain.

He told Hodgins that he worried his wife would “freak out” when she heard what happened.

Hodgins testified that Gregson was polite and co-operative during the interview, not typical of someone who was about to be accused of murder.